Over the past couple of weeks, the China visit by the American livestreamer IShowSpeed has generated a huge amount of interest between the US and Chinese social media cohorts. The converging points, of course, are the most watched ones, such as the Da Zhang Wei (大张伟, Wowkie Zhang) tune “Sunshine, Rainbow, White Pony”, or the “neige” song, a TikTok hit, that has a Chinese refrain that shares uncanny similarities to the n-word.
But the stream also included a collaboration with the “Chinese Rickroll” of a song, Tian Yiming‘s (田一名) cover version of “Super Idol”. The song was originally an ad jingle for Watsons’s bottled water, written by singer-songwriter A Si, but Tian’s version won out against many cover versions on Douyin, TikTok’s Chinese sister app. It, in turn, inspired many lip-sync versions on TikTok, making it a huge hit on social media, thus triggering the Speed collab.
Jin Sheng Yuan (今生缘, sometimes “Affinities of This Life”) gained popularity last year when the English-speaking audiences on TikTok began to “decipher” the lyrics by mishearing it as an English song. From turning “我们今生” (wo men jin sheng, lit. We in this life) into “women cheat” (or “all men cheat” if the cover singer is female) and “沧桑” (cang sang, lit. vicissitudes of life) into “Samsung”. The song was then called the “Samsung” song. When the TikTok ban was imminent, many American users used this song as a farewell to the platform, and many more brought it to Rednote when they sought refuge at the Chinese platform before the ban that never was.
Other recent hits from China that became popular on TikTok include rapper Skai Isyourgod’s “Bafanglaicai” (八方来财, Money comes from all directions) and “Yinguo” (因果, Karma). The two tracks became popular in China for their “abstract” post-irony towards Cantonese culture and superstitions, while becoming a gateway to traditional Chinese cultures for foreign audiences. Plus, the strong Cantonese accent in Skai’s Mandarin seemed to confuse many.
With Chinese platforms such as TikTok and Rednote continuing to receive interest in the West and cultural dialogues like the “TikTok refugee” event continuing to take place, there is bound to be more music and memes (and musical memes) that will be seen and heard in the West. In many cases, it will be in completely different contexts, like almost every song mentioned above.
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